Monday, November 22, 2010

Th Process Continues

Michael wiping down the Masonite to make sure there is no dust.

We unrolled the mural, now comes the "do or die" part. All the months of work are put on the line now. Nelson used an archival fabric glue. Several tests were done at the studio in Sandpoint with excellent results but never with a piece this big. The glue's drying time is about 15 minutes so it was critical that it lay smooth without bubbles . Nelson and Stephen spread the glue with what look like big combs from the hardware store so that the spread was even and thin. We then unrolled the painting and used linoleum rollers to press the painting. No pictures of that part of the process because we were working under such a strict time limit. Michael and I were pressing and flattening out air bubbles.

The process gave us a real scare. After working one piece of the painting and moving on to the next we found huge bubbles forming. Because the glue was wetting the paper we were having all kinds of issues. It seemed like all those months of work were about to go up in smoke.

Nelson and I working on the bubbling. We just kept telling each other it would be alright. After about an hour and a half we left for lunch and hoped that as the painting dried that it would respond like the stretching process Nelson goes through before he starts a painting, which wets the paper and as it dries it becomes very taunt. We were truly blessed the painting dried beautifully, tight as a drum just as it should have.

1 comment:

About Me

Born and raised in Tempe, Arizona, Nelson studied to be an architect earning a degree from Arizona State University. After practicing for 15 years, during which time he owned a successful firm and won numerous awards, Nelson made the pivotal decision to leave the field in 1990 to pursue his dream of becoming a full-time artist. Nelson credits his life-long love of both art and math with his dual-career path of architecture and fine art. His mother, a painter herself, was his earliest influence. Years later he resumed watercolor classes, this time with a higher degree of dedication and more realistic goals. It was during this phase of training when Nelson developed his signature style, which he credits most to the principle of “gestalt.”He wanted to be a full-time artist but to justify a career change he knew he needed to sell some art. He got his art represented by several Scottsdale galleries by showing his work door-to-door. Within two weeks, two of his paintings sold. Since then, some of the leading galleries in the U.S. have sought to represent his work, recognizing his unique combination of incredible detail and big, bold and graphic images.